Adoria’s Interrogation

Adoria walked beside her oxcart, her almost-black hair falling in a braid down her back. The bright sun had lightly tanned her white skin, and dust from the road covered her legs and sandaled feet.

She was on the middle stretch of the seven-mile road between the human port town of Halipodes and the border of the centaur Land. This stretch of the ancient road was open and forlorn, with great flat rocks on either side, too low to hide bandits. The greatest danger normally came from the vipers that basked on the rocks or, sometimes, in the road itself.

Adoria heard a hiss. The oxen stopped, and she did as well, looking around. She heard a male voice, close by: “My Lady, please! She is known; she will be missed.” But Adoria couldn’t see anyone.

Another voice, high pitched and harsh: “I want her. I will have her.”

Then Adoria saw the gray rock just ahead of her turn into fog, and vanish. The hole left behind had crude stairs, and a woman climbing up them. Behind the woman Adoria saw Henus of Iba, a man she knew and distrusted. But the woman wasn’t a woman. Female, yes, but her face... her hair...

Adoria felt cold and faint. The female stepped forward, smiling a horrible smile. Henus clapped his hands over his ears, but Adoria couldn’t move as the female began to speak the grating hissing words of compulsion spell. Then the world when white, and silent.

Adoria shivered, despite the hot sun. She stood alone again, beside her oxcart, with the big gray stone back in place just as if it had been there for ages. She wanted to think that Henus and... that female were hallucinations brought on by sunstroke, but she knew better. Unfortunately, there were no physical signs of anything unnatural. None that she could see with a quick glance, in any case, and she didn’t want to stay and search. She clicked at the oxen and moved on.

As she walked, she tried to form a plan. She would tell Timon, or one of the other centaur guards, just as soon as she reached the border post. Except - she couldn’t. Even the thought of talking about what she had seen had heard seemed to turn her tongue into stone. Back into stone. She couldn’t even speak of it here, with none but herself and the dumb oxen to listen. She tried, and her felt like a stone in her mouth.

She threw her will against the compulsion, again and again. Each time with the same result: She could not speak of what she had seen. She could not speak of it. An idea came to her, and she dug among the packages in the oxcart. She brought out a tally tablet and a stylus, and her fingers felt like stone as well. She couldn’t write out a warning, either.

It was so frustrating. The centaurs were her friends, had been her friends ever since she had first come here with Uncle Zorian on a trading expedition. The two of them were among the few human merchants willing to abide by the centaur Law. That willingness had earned them friendship and prosperity, in their trading with the centaurs, and now all that was threatened. She had seen something that threatened the centaurs themselves, and she could not make herself talk about it.

But maybe the centaurs could make her talk.

Adoria stopped and stood in the middle of the road, considering the idea. That... female had woven her compulsions well. Adoria couldn’t make herself speak of her, or hint at her existence, or even think of what she was. But if the information were to be forced from her, by merciless torment, the compulsion wouldn’t block that. It didn’t extend that far.

Smiling thinly, Adoria put the tally board and stylus back into the cart. Then she pulled out her pass tokens and used a convenient rock to smash them into fragments.

“Ho, there, you strange female flatfooter!” Timon grinned down at Adoria, his weathered face as old as her father’s. “Aren’t you a little short, even for an amazon?” Most of the flatfoot - human - females that the centaurs saw did come from the amazon queendoms, Adoria knew, and most amazons were taller than her - but still shorter than the average centaur.

“Silly stud,” Adoria answered the centaur guard in kind. “I was only gone four days. You’ve been drinking too much of that strange Meadsian wine, if you’ve forgotten me already.”

“Drink that stuff? It’s only good for killing lice.” His grin softened into a smile. “Welcome back, Adoria.”

“Thank you,” Adoria said, “but, uh, I lost my pass tokens.” The centaur’s gaze on her sharpened, and she went on to say “I know I had them when I left Halipodes - I specifically checked. But now I can’t find them; they’re not here where I put them, and not anywhere else I’ve looked.”

“What’s this?” another centaur asked. Idalia, trotting over, was shorter and younger than Timon but taller than Adoria. She wore a blouse covering her top, unlike Timon who was nude except for his weapon-baldric. “I though you just had your tokens renewed a week ago.”

“Yes, just a few days before I left for Halipodes,” Adoria said. “And they should still have three weeks to go. But I can’t find them now.” She shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to go through the ordeal of getting a new set.”

Idalia stepped up to the cart and began to look through its contents. “Don’t give up so quickly,” she said, sounding for a moment just like Adoria’s mother. She was a dozen years too young for that, but still old enough to pose as an older sister, or maybe an aunt. Except for the part about being a centaur rather than a human, of course.

Adoria moved in to help with the search, concealing her knowledge of its futility. Timon watched over their shoulders. After the better part of an hour, the female centaur conceded defeat: “They really are gone. I’ll take you to the stocks, then.”

“I’ll watch the oxen,” Timon offered, and the three of them unharnessed the beasts. Then Adoria removed her sandals and handed them to Idalia.

“I submit myself to the law and custom of the Kentaros,” the human woman said formally.

Idalia tucked the sandals into her belt-harness, and moved next to the cart. “Climb on,” she said. Adoria climbed up on the cart, and then onto the female centaur’s back.

“Women!” Timon snorted at the sight. Male centaurs considered it humiliating to be ridden by a human.

“Men!” Idalia snorted back as she started off. Female centaurs considered the male attitude to be silly.

Idalia’s ambling gait was smooth and quick, making the trip to the stocks a short one. Adoria knew that there were actually two sets of stocks, one for amazons and other females entering the centaur Land, and another for male strangers. Adoria was much more familiar with this border’s female set: Stocks made to imprison both single victims and groups of up to four, a ‘witch’s lover’ - a fat log with straps to hold down the victim while her feet stuck out past the end, a pair of tables where the victims would lie on their bellies with their knees bent and feet stuck up in the air, and posts to which victims could be tied while kneeling. There was also the usual sundial, and the usual sign on which the Prophesy was painted. “Alja Kentaros mor kental velator velex bartaros mel Uru, nor Kentaros yonvel morkap i patalos.“ it said in the curlicue script that the centaurs used: “If the Kentaros should ever fail to visit merciless torment on foreigners who enter the Land, then will the Kentaros suffer betrayal and ruination.” But the centaurs were not an evil people, and so the torment they used was a tickle-torment, applied to the soft flat human feet that centaurs found fascinating. None of the stocks or other restraints were in use at that moment, but a male centaur waited in the shade of the old oak tree. Adoria recognized him as Timon’s son Vanko.

“Ho, Vanko,” Idalia called. “I bring you another flatfoot foreigner.”

“Adoria?” Vanko looked puzzled. “I thought your monthly pass tokens were good for another three weeks yet.”

“Yes, but I lost them,” Adoria explained.

Vanko gaze sharpened, much as his father’s had. “Oh ho, so you’ve come to take your medicine, have you?” He shook his head. “But seriously, you should be more careful about such things.”

“I was careful,” Adoria said, and it was even true. She had very carefully smashed up her pass tokens.

“Well, I think it’s the post for you, this time,” Vanko said, pointing. Idalia stepped helpfully over to the indicated post, and Adoria crawled from her back onto the wooden platform set midway up. This put Adoria at a convenient height for Vanko to do his work.

Adoria adjusted the old fleece lying on the platform and knelt on it, facing and wrapping her arms around the heavy, well-polished post. Vanko stepped forward to fasten her in place with leather straps, while Idalia set Adoria’s sandals down on the ground beside the platform.

“I’ll come back for you when you’re finished,” she said.

“Thank you,” Adoria said, her cheek pressed against the post. Vanko raised his own hand in acknowledgement, and Idalia trotted off. Adoria had heard that Idalia herself was an excellent tickler - Uncle Zorian had often spoken of her skills with fond exasperation - but she only tickled men. The centaurs had a custom, stronger than even their law, that only male centaurs would tickle female victims, and vice versa.

After finishing with the straps that bound Adoria’s wrists, Vanko placed a wooden block under her ankles, raising them slightly. He secured them with another leather strap, and used a thong to tie her large toes, as well. Stepping back to the oak tree, he returned with a bucket of water and a dipper. Adoria drank, knowing the importance of not letting her throat go dry.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to enjoy this, Adoria,” Vanko said after she had finished drinking. “You have the most interesting tickle-responses.” Vanko, Adoria knew, had the tickling skill that his father claimed to lack. “But are you really sure you’ve lost your pass tokens?”

“I’m sure.” She smiled. “Do your worst.” And question me while you’re at it. But she couldn’t make herself say that; the compulsion wouldn’t let her.

“Oh, I will,” Vanko said. The centaur stepped around the platform. Adoria heard and felt water splash over her bare and helpless feet, and then a stiff-bristled brush, briskly applied. Adoria squealed. It tickled! She knew that it wasn’t part of the tickle-torment, that her session hadn’t begun yet. But it still tickled! “You know I haven’t begun yet,” Vanko chided her, echoing her thoughts.

“I- I know,” Adoria gasped as he stopped scrubbing and splashed more water over her bare feet.

Vanko chuckled, then went over to the sundial to adjust a gnomen. He returned with a box of implements, and pulled one out. Bound as she was, Adoria couldn’t see what it was. But a moment later she could feel it: A drying cloth, with Vanko’s fingers behind it poking and stroking the soles of her feet and the spaces between her toes.

“I think seven parts out of every eight of you flatfooters laugh during the pre-wash,” Vanko commented as his fingers tickled Adoria through the cloth. “I should keep a tally.” Adoria was giggling too hard to answer that. “On the other hand,” the centaur went on from behind her. “This drying is a part of your tickle-session. Don’t you think it’s clever to combine them like this?”

“Hahaha heeheehee yes haha hee yes yes! Heeheeheehee,” Adoria managed to say. She pulled against her bonds, knowing it was useless but unable to keep herself from trying to escape.

“You’re just saying that to lull me,” Vanko said. “It won’t work.” He set the cloth aside and began to tickle directly with his fingers, running them first down Adoria’s right sole, and then down her left. Laughter poured out of Adoria as she felt him paying special attention to her insteps.

Keep talking! Ask more questions! Adoria thought. But Vanko didn’t say anything more. He just gave an occasional happy hum as he continued to tickle Adoria’s vulnerable soles. He started using a dull-pronged wooden fork, alternating it with his fingertips as he inflicted more tickling on Adoria. More giggling and laughter poured from Adoria as the tickle-sensations sank into her soles. Into her insteps and the balls of her feet and her heels and the pads of her toes...

Now Vanko applied the preternaturally soft and tickle-inducing feather of a vos-hawk. Adoria squirmed wildly in attempts to escape that she knew were useless but that she could not help making. Her feet seemed to grow, her soles seeming to become incredibly huge as all her attention became focused on the gentle, irresistible teasing that her centaur friend and tormentor applied.

The tickling paused. Adoria gasped for breath and blinked tears from her eyes. Another centaur, one that Adoria recognized as Rodas, was bringing in two amazons that Adoria didn’t recognize. They had their wrists lashed behind their backs, and they looked rather sullen. Their blonde hair was frazzled from their capture, and their weapons, of course, had been taken from them. Skirmishers or scouts who had crossed the border and then been caught, then. Rodas made the first one sit in one of the two-victim stocks, but the second one put up a struggle when it came to her turn. Vanko waited to see if his colleague needed help, but gray-haired Rodas had not only a centaur’s size and strength but also years of experience in using his horse-half against struggling humans. The second amazon was soon forced into the stocks as well, and then the footgear of both female warriors were removed and their ankles were locked in place.

At this point the second amazon swore at Rodas, and at centaurs in general, in great and lengthy detail. The first amazon, Adoria noticed, was reading the sign. Adoria saw her lips move.

“Virgins,” Vanko commented, provoking a new string of curses from the second amazon. He meant that the amazons had not suffered the centaur’s tickle-torment before, not that they were virgin’s in the usual sense. “I’ll help you with them once I finish with Adoria,” he told Rodas.

“No hurry,” Rodas said. He went over to the sundial and held his hands apart, signaling the time remaining on the sundial. Vanko went around behind Adoria again, and Rodas returned to the two captive amazons.

“Please,” the first amazon whimpered - the one who had read the sign.

“Virgins,” Rodas said. Then Adoria was unable to follow any further byplay because Vanko had started tickling her soles once more.

Once more Adoria burst into laughter as the irresistible tickle-sensations soaked into her helpless feet. Once more Vanko combined his fingers, the wooden fork, and the vos-hawk feather in a gentle, merciless torment that made Adoria squirm and giggle uncontrollably. The tickling again danced all over her soles, over her insteps and heels, between her toes, over the balls of her feet...

But Vanko did not ask her any questions. Adoria considered begging, offering to tell him anything he might want to know. Usually, a victim did better by not pleading for mercy or begging for a stop to the tickling. It didn’t do you any good, and the centaurs had more respect for you if you didn’t. Uncle Zorian had told her that, and various centaurs had confirmed it in various conversations later. But this was a special case. Adoria had to get Vanko to start questioning her.

Only the compulsion wouldn’t let her even hint that she had any secrets to hide. She could beg for Vanko to stop, but not offer any reason why. Besides, she wasn’t sure she really wanted this honey-sweet tickling to stop. Even though she was struggling mightily - and futilely - to avoid it.

And then Adoria became unable to think about the matter coherently - or to think about anything coherently. Vanko had increased the tempo for the final minutes of tickling, and the tickle sensations expanded to fill Adoria’s entire world. There was only the tickling of her soles, and the teasing touch along her insteps, and that squirming sensation running between her toes. Laughter poured from Adoria as if from a fountain. Sharp light strokes teased her feet. An unbearable feather-softness made her squirm and squeal. Then wiggling fingers again, all over her soles. Moving rapidly, as the tickling went on and on and on...

The tickling finally stopped. The session was over. Vanko undid the straps holding Adoria helplessly in place, and Idalia was there as well, helping her down from the platform. As Adoria sat and pulled her sandals back on, she heard, for the first time in what seemed like eons, laughter that was not her own. Vanko and Rodas were scrubbing the amazon’s feet, and the amazons were squealing with laughter in response.

Idalia handed Adoria a new set of pass tokens. “Vanko left these for you,” the female centaur said. “This time be more careful with them, all right?”

“All right,” Adoria answered. But she knew she’s have to ‘lose’ them again, and suffer another tickle-session in consequence. And she’d have to make a better plan; somehow she had to get her centaur friends to start asking her questions.

Adoria considered the problem once more when she woke up the next morning. She and her Uncle Zorian had cots in the storehouse they had had built for the goods they traded. Uncle Zorian was gone on a trading expedition, so Adoria made herself a breakfast of oat-cakes and white cheese, and ate it alone. As she ate, she tried to come up with a better idea than taking yesterday’s plan and trying it again. Nothing came to her; at least nothing that wasn’t blocked by that Hades-spawned compulsion spell.

After breakfast, she decided to go for a walk. A number of philosophers claimed that a brisk walk in the cool morning air helped one’s thinking. She walked through the large village or small town that had grown up around the border post, nodding to the people she knew - mostly centaurs, but also one or two of the rare humans who, like herself, were willing to endure the centaur’s Law.

One of the centaurs was Idalia, walking with another female centaur that Adoria knew. “I thought you were with Uncle Zorian, Cora,” Adoria said to her after an exchange of greetings.

“I was,” Cora answered. “He picked me to play message runner. He’s taking an extra side trip - you know how he is. Anyway I left his letter for you at the storehouse.”

“All the usual changes in plans?” Adoria asked.

Cora nodded. “Of course. One of us will have to go down to Halipodes. Are you planning to go there any time soon?”

“I just came back from there yesterday,” Adoria answered.

“And she lost her pass tokens on the way,” Idalia added.

“And I lost my pass tokens on the way,” Adoria admitted. Cora snickered, drawing a repressive glance from Idalia.

“Well, be more careful with your new ones,” Idalia told Adoria. “Don’t go losing them on your walk this morning.”

“I’ll try not to,” Adoria said. And if I do, please ask me how - and why - it happened. But she couldn’t say that; her tongue felt like stone when she tried. Damn that... female. Adoria had to wave good-bye to her friends and walk out into the countryside as if nothing were wrong.

The air was fine, in the morning sun, with a pleasant breeze. The grass was green, no one else was in sight, and Adoria still couldn’t devise a better plan. Or rather, she could devise a dozen plans, any of which would have worked if only the compulsion wouldn’t keep her from speaking. It was a galling paradox. Once more, Adoria cursed that... female who had laid the compulsion spell on her, and then said aloud, “I guess I just have to try the stupid plan, again.”

A rocky watercourse held more rocks than water, and once again Adoria pulled out her pass tokens and used a pair of rocks to smash them. There. This time Vanko, or Rodas, or one of the other centaurs would be suspicious: Losing her pass tokens once was ill fortune, they’d think. But twice? She would try to nurture their suspicions, and they would tease the truth from her. She stood and started to walk to the stocks where Idalia had carried her yesterday.

Just before reaching the stocks, Adoria met Vanko trotting the other way. “Ho Vanko!” she called. “What are you doing here?”

The centaur stopped. “Ho, Adoria! I could ask you the same thing. We have three amazons waiting at the stocks, and Rodas sent me to bring back another tickler.” He cocked his head as he looked down at Adoria. “So why are you here?”

“You won’t believe it. I lost my pass tokens again.”

“Are you sure? They weren’t stolen, or just misplaced, or accidentally broken somehow?”

No Vanko, Adoria thought, I deliberately broke them. But she couldn’t say that. The compulsion spell made her lie, instead: “I’m sure. I had them yesterday, after Idalia gave them to me. But now?” she shrugged. Please Vanko, don’t ask me questions now. Wait until I’m in the stocks, being tickled, and then ask me what happened.

“When was the last time you saw them?” Vanko asked. Then he waved his own question aside. “I have to go now. I’ll see you at the stocks.” He trotted off, calling over his shoulder, “Tell Rodas that I’ll bring two others!” Adoria raised her hand in acknowledgement, and then turned to continue on to the stocks.

When she reached them, she found Rodas waiting under the old oak, along with the three amazons who the centaurs had bound hand and foot. “So why isn’t she being carried here, trussed up like a sack of oats?” one of the amazons asked.

“She has pass tokens,” Rodas told her. “She was here yesterday, in fact.” He turned to Adoria. “Ho Adoria, what are you doing back here this morning?”

“Ho Rodas,” Adoria answered. “I uh, lost my pass tokens. Again. I can’t uh, find them, and I don’t, er know what happened to them.” She did her best to tell the lie badly, hoping to raise the old centaur’s suspicions, but Rodas misinterpreted her hesitations.

“That has to be the most embarrassing sort of bad luck,” he said. “Two times in two days. Well. Sit down here in the shade, and wait for Vanko to come back. Did you see him on your way here?”

“I saw him,” Adoria said. “He told me you had sent him for another tickler, and I told him about my pass tokens. He then said to tell you that he would bring two others.”

“Good,” Rodas pronounced. He picked up a branch and began to whittle. Adoria leaned back against the oak’s trunk. The amazon who had spoken up before squirmed around to face her.

“So the horse-folk trust you,” the amazon made it a half-question.

“Well, yes,” Adoria answered.

“And you came here anyway?” A full question, and full of disbelief.

“If I didn’t, they wouldn’t trust me any more.”

Rodas chuckled. The amazon, by her clothing a scout who had strayed over the border, glanced up at him and fell silent. Adoria sat and tried, unsuccessfully, to think of ways to get the centaurs to question her as they applied their tickle-torment.

Vanko soon returned with two other male centaurs. He must have found them quickly, Adoria though. Rodas directed her to a four-victim set of stocks, and began untying the ankles of the three amazons. Soon all four human females were sitting in a row, their ankles locked in place and their bare feet exposed. Their wrists were bound above their heads, lashed together and the loose ends tied to an overhead beam.

The amazons were apprehensive and sullen. Adoria gathered that they all had been through the centaur’s torment at least once before, and were not looking forward to this session. Adoria herself felt her usual mix of eagerness and apprehension; more than her usual mix, actually, due to her fresh memories of the previous day. The centaurs - Rodas, Vanko, and the two newcomers Chiron the Younger and Farris - were disgustingly cheerful as the bound large toes to make helpless feet even more helpless. Worse, they had no suspicion at all that Adoria might be hiding a secret from them. But why should they? They considered her a friend, even if she was a flatfooter and a foreigner. She tried to drop hints, but the compulsion kept her from speaking out, and the curses and struggles of the three amazons keep the centaurs from noticing her non-verbal efforts to draw their attention.

The centaurs provided the usual dippers of water, and the usual foot-scrubbing, making all four of the human women squeal. Adoria saw Vanko grin at the squirming of the amazon sitting next to her, before Chiron’s scrubbing drew her attention to her own feet. Rodas stepped over to the sundial to adjust the gnomen, and the real tickling then began.

Chiron applied the leather device known as a ‘bullfeather’ with an expert hand, drawing giggles and whimpers from Adoria. The forced titters and squirming of the other women made the tickling seem even more intense than usual, and Adoria’s giggles soon gave way to wild laughter. Up and down Adoria’s soles Chiron ran the tickle-device, and back and forth. Chiron was young, about the same age as Vanko and Adoria herself, but he sent exquisite tickle-sensations into Adoria’s soles, into her insteps and the balls of her feet, and even along the toes, avoiding the novice mistakes that a bullfeather was subject to.

Setting the bullfeather aside, Chiron switched to his fingers and a square of silk, and inflicted new and fresh tickle-sensations on Adoria’s helpless feet. The silk ran between her toes, and the fingers danced lightly and quickly, producing a continuing squirming giggle instead of the wild howls of laughter. He searched for the most ticklish places on Adoria’s soles, but every bit of them tried to claim that title. Then the silk, now brushing lightly over her insteps drew more squeaky bursts of laughter from her.

The other three women weren’t doing any better as they laughed and giggled and struggled without result. As the skilled centaurs tickled and tickled and tickled their feet. It was a gentle torment, but still the merciless one that the Prophesy and the centaur’s Law demanded.

The centaurs switched places, and now Vanko tickled Adoria, applying yesterday’s knobby wooden roller and vos-hawk feather. A familiar tickling, but no less squirm and giggle inducing for all that. The softness of the feather and the roughness of the roller combined to produce tickle-sensations that she could not avoid. The stocks and the bindings on her made sure of that. Nor could she endure them; they were too rich, too much, too maddening. But she had no choice but to endure them. She could not escape them. She could only laugh and squirm, and writhe and giggle, as that terrible teasing tickle went on and on and on. Working up from her heels and over her insteps up to the balls of her feet and her toes. And back and forth as the tickles worked back down to her heels. And here and there, in an unpredictable pattern.

A brief pause; one cunningly calculated to keep Adoria from becoming desensitized, to let her catch her breath and to prepare her for the next bout of tickling. Adoria gasped for air and recalled why she was undergoing this torment. Except it wasn’t torment, exactly. And it was working: She knew the tickle torment would break the compulsion once Rodas or Vanko or one of the others started to ask her about... that female and the danger she posed to the centaur Land. Only they weren’t asking her anything, and the compulsion was keeping her from speaking about it until they did.

Worse, the squeals and laughter of the three amazons were making it impossible to think. The one locked in place next to her was giggling uncontrollably as Vanko applied his vos-hawk feather and knobby roller to her feet. The next one over strained and gasped, and gave vent to sudden bursts of laughter as Farris made tickle-attacks on her helpless soles with his bare fingers. And the one at the end squeaked and twisted as Rodas used his whittled stick on her insteps and the balls of her feet, applying enough force to tickle and tease, but not so much as to cause pain.

Chiron returned from checking the sundial, and the centaurs traded places once more. Now Rodas stood before Adoria, smiling a cheerful, wicked smile. He tapped her trapped soles with his stick, drawing a squeak and some squirms from her, then set the stick aside and dipped his hands in olive oil.

The slickness of the oil as Rodas worked it into Adoria’s feet sent tickle-sensations soaking into her soles. Adoria giggled uncontrollably, both from the tickling and from knowing what was to come. This was not the first time that the centaurs had inflicted an oil-slippery tickling on her. Not the first time that a river-smoothed pebble had been run over her vulnerable soles, moving here and there, and there and here, with a different tickle-sensation that seemed to soak into her feet.

Her feet seemed to grow until they felt like they were as long and as wide as the rest of her, with an increased sensitivity that matched their increased size. And every bit of them was getting tickled. As the stone ran all over her soles, it sent tickle-sensations pouring into her, causing laughter to pour out. Her laughter blended with that of the other three women, and it seemed as she felt their tickling as well. Four times as much tickling as could be inflicted on a single person. Four times more tickling than she could possibly stand. Yet she had no choice but to endure that wonderful horrible sweet tickling, even when it felt like it would last forever.

It didn’t last forever, of course. The shadow of the sundial eventually moved to the gnomen, marking the end of the tickle session, and the centaurs released the four women from the stocks. Adoria sat on the grass, her feet tucked protectively under her, and watched the three amazons stumble off, escorted by Chiron. They could not wait to leave that place, even if they were barely able to walk.

Once Adoria recovered enough to stand without shaking, she put on her sandals and received her new set of pass tokens from Rodas. “And this time I hope you can keep from losing them. Vanko and the other young ones were enjoying themselves - but there can be too much of a good thing, eh?”

“I’ll do my best,” Adoria promised.

The next morning, Adoria walked over the grassy hills again, but this time she had a touch of wine-sickness. She had taken an amphora from the storehouse, last night, and had shared it with Idalia, in the hopes that a little strategic drunkenness would let her slip something out past the compulsion. Uncle Zorian would have called it a desperate plan. So would Idalia, if she had known of it. And Timon, and Rodas, and, well, everyone she knew. It was a desperate plan... and it hadn’t worked.

Adoria pulled out her pass tokens. If she “lost” them again, that would be worse than desperate. It would be stupid. She needed a good plan, and for that she’d normally tell others about her problem and ask for advice in formulating a plan. Except that if she could do that, she wouldn’t need a plan. It was a paradox worthy of any philosopher she had ever heard of. She put her pass tokens away again.

Demons take philosophers and their crazy paradoxes! Walking out here wasn’t helping, no matter what they might say. The sun hurt her eyes. And she had all the chores from Uncle Zorian’s letter to deal with, back at the storehouse.

Several hours spent sipping cold herb tea while inventorying stock and dealing with accounts allowed her headache to fade away. Dealing with the three or four centaurs who came by on business was pleasant and profitable as well. Adoria smiled as she put coins into the strongbox. Her mother would be scandalized by her independence, but then her mother was scandalized by her staying here in the centaur Land in the first place. But all this would be reduced to ruins if... that female succeeded with her plans.

Adoria needed a plan of her own. She tried once more to think of one as she sorted through old letters. Getting questioned while Vanko or one of the other centaurs tickled her silly was half a plan, and the other half still eluded her. She had to stir up the centaurs’ suspicions, or the suspicions of at least one of the centaurs. She had to slip hints past this compulsion laid on her. Her hands shuffled the letters again. She had worn the problem smooth, in her mind, but she wasn’t any closer to a solution.

A dozen silver coins dropped down around her head and shoulders, startling her. She looked up to see Idalia standing over her. “Did that get your attention?” the female centaur asked sweetly.

“Sorry,” Adoria said. “I’m sorry. I was... thinking. What can I do for you?”

“Are you all right?” Idalia asked. “I practically shouted at you, and you didn’t hear me. So I thought about what would shock a merchant the most, and dropped those coins on your head.”

“Well, it worked. I guess I was lost in these old records. But I’m fine,” Adoria smiled reassuringly. “I just have a lot to deal with, right now. Uncle Zorian’s instructions in his letter, and the Meadsians trying to cheat me because I’m a female, and other things. But I’m fine,” she repeated.

Idalia looked doubtful, but let the subject drop. “I came for some cinnamon; I need two shekels of it. Do you have any?”

Adoria stood up. “Yes, but I’ll have to charge you too much for it. I can only get cinnamon from the Meadsians, and they’re being thieves, as usual. It’s back here.” She led the way back into the storehouse.

As Adoria weighed out the sticks of cinnamon, Idalia spoke up again. “You’re not bothered about losing your pass tokens, are you? I don’t think anyone will hold it against you, especially the way you owed up to it. It was just bad fortune. Well, your Uncle Zorian might,” Idalia corrected herself. “Losing the pass tokens, that is, not owing up to it. He’s very careful with his own tokens. Usually.” She smiled at a memory.

“I guess I was worried that you centaurs would be suspicious,” Adoria said. I was HOPING you’d be suspicious. But she couldn’t say that. She was lucky to be able to slip out what she had said, past the compulsion. “Here’s your cinnamon.” She handed the package to Idalia.

“Thank you,” Idalia said. Adoria escorted her to the storehouse’s exit. She needed to do something outrageous, Adoria decided. Something more outrageous than just ‘losing’ her pass tokens two days in a row. Something that would shock Idalia, or one of the other centaurs, the way Idalia’s shower of coins had shocked her. What would shock a centaur the most?

“Oh, that’s how I can do it. I have to go now,” she told Idalia.

“Do what?” Idalia asked. The female centaur followed Adoria as she strode out and away from the storehouse. “Where are you going?” Adoria just smiled enigmatically. “Adoria, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just thought of something.” Adoria continued walking, with Idalia staying easily beside her. Finally the female centaur reached out to stop her human friend.

“Adoria, you strange flatfooter, what’s going on?”

“Idalia. Please don’t stop me. It’s important.” Adoria wanted to tell her friend why, but the compulsion wouldn’t let her. But at least Idalia was starting to ask questions.

Idalia let go. “All right, but I’m not leaving you.”

“Good. That’s good.” Adoria smiled again. “Just don’t stop me. Please.”

Idalia kept a pained silence as Adoria strode out into the countryside. The female centaur even kept silent as Adoria approached the stocks, although she did look questions at the human. Adoria wanted to answer those questions, but she couldn’t - yet. The compulsion wouldn’t let her. Soon, though.

Rodas and Vanko came out from under the oak tree as Adoria arrived at the stocks. “Ho, Adoria,” Vanko said. “Don’t tell me you lost your pass tokens again.”

Adoria held up her tokens. “No I didn’t. See?” She walked over to the sundial and used the gnomen to smash them into fragments.

The three centaurs stared at her, dumbfounded. At last Rodas spoke up. “Adoria, have you gone mad?”

“She was acting very strangely,” Idalia said slowly.

“Is she possessed?” Vanko asked. “Could a ghost or demon be making her act like this?”

Idalia picked up three oak twigs, and whispered something to them. She stepped over to Adoria, and lightly touched the human’s forehead with them.

Adoria let her. “I didn’t know you were a sorceress,” Adoria commented. If Idalia could remove the compulsion... then she would still have to undergo a tickle session for her lost tokens. But things would otherwise be much easier.

Idalia shouted a word and tossed the twigs into the air. “I’m not a sorceress,” she then told Adoria. “This is almost the only charm I know,” She studied the pattern that the twigs made on the ground. “And you’re not possessed.”

Vanko watched her closely. “I don’t think she’s mad, either. I think she’s desperate. And that she smashed her other pass tokens too. Didn’t you,” he asked Adoria.

“No!” Adoria said quickly. “I lost them, just as I said I did.” Yes! Come on Vanko, figure out the rest!

“She’s lying,” Rodas said. “Or rather, she’s telling the opposite of the truth. Adoria, why did you smash your tokens? What happened two days ago?”

“I won’t tell you. You can’t make me tell you.” Adoria grinned at the older centaur. She had implicitly admitted that she had smashed her tokens, slipping it out past the compulsion. And she had finally - finally! - made Rodas suspicious.

Vanko grinned broadly. “Which means we can make you tell us. During your tickle-session.”

“No! No! No!” Adoria cried. Yes! Yes! Yes!

“Yes,” Rodas said. “Idalia, I think you should ask the questions. Vanko and I will provide the persuasion.”

In a few minutes, Adoria found herself bound and helpless on one of the tickle-tables. Belly down on an old fleece, her wrists were bound in front of her and leashed to an iron loop set in the wood before her. Her legs were spread apart and bent at the knee, feet sticking up invitingly. Her ankles were lashed to a crossbeam, and leather thongs held down not only her large toes, but also her little toes as well.

Idalia held a dipper for her. “Drink now, you’re going to need it.” The female centaur had folded her legs beneath her, lowering herself to face Adoria directly.

Adoria drank, and then responded to the worried look in her friend’s eyes. “Come on now, Idalia. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be completely cheerful if you had a studly flatfooter in this position. Balint, for example.”

“That’s different,” Idalia protested weakly. Adoria raised an eloquent eyebrow, and then squealed as Vanko and Rodas began to scrub her soles. “All right,” Idalia said. “Question time: Why did you smash your pass tokens, Adoria?”

“Heeheehee won’t say heeheehahaha.”

“Give us time to break down her resistance,” Vanko said from above and behind Adoria. “We haven’t begun the real tickling yet.” He went over to the sundial and adjusted the gnomen, brushing away the smashed fragments of Adoria’s tokens. He then returned to his position behind Adoria, and she could feel his eager fingers ticking her left foot while Rodas tickled her right.

After a minute, Idalia asked again, “Adoria, why did you smash your tokens?”

“Heehahaha to haha to make you do this heeheehee get around hahahaha compulsion spell!” Adoria felt ecstatic. It was working! The compulsion spell couldn’t stop her from giving out secrets extracted under torment, even a torment as pleasant as this one.

The relief on Idalia’s face, as it became clear that they were on the right path, was good to see as well. “Who put the compulsion spell on you?” the female centaur asked.

Adoria shook her head, the giggles continuing to spill out of her. “More tickling needed,” Rodas said, and proceeded to apply it. After another minute Idalia asked the question again.

“Evil ... female ... between ... here ... here and ... Halipodes!” Adoria got out between bouts of laughter. Then Vanko and Rodas had to apply further tickles before she could answer the next question.

So the interrogation continued. Every minute or two Idalia would ask Adoria another question, and Adoria, squirming, would gasp out the answer between bouts of giggling and laughter. Between the questions, Vanko and Rodas would inflict the tickle-torments they were so skilled in applying, Vanko with the verve and enthusiasm of youth, and Rodas with the greater experience of maturity.

Slowly, Adoria told Idalia about everything she had seen and heard, and about everything she knew or had guessed: About the flat rock that had turned to mist. About the Henus of Iba. About the medusa and the compulsion spell she had cast. About the stone soldiers she had glimpsed, hidden in that secret hole. Everything.

It didn’t all come out at once, of course. The compulsion spell didn’t shatter like a pot but rather withered away slowly, worn down by the tickling and Idalia’s patient questions. Those questions took up nearly the entire tickle-session, and this session was just as long as the previous ones. Adoria squirmed and laughed as she felt Rodas apply the bullfeather, and the vos-hawk feather, and the blunt wooden fork on her helpless right foot. She giggled and twisted as Vanko used the wooden roller and his fingers to tickle tickle tickle her vulnerable left sole. Sometimes Rodas would pause to let Vanko apply an especially intense tickle, and sometimes Vanko would relent, briefly, so that Rodas could demonstrate his tickling mastery on Adoria’s instep or in the spaces between her toes. Mostly, however, they combined their activities, both tickling at once. But never in such a way as to distract Adoria from the other’s work. Their sweet torments would always add together, and never subtract from each other.

And then Idalia would ask another question, and Adoria would blurt out the answer, revealing another bit of the plot against the centaur’s Land.

At last Idalia asked her final question, and Adoria felt the compulsion spell fade into nothingness, frustrated by the tickle-questioning that had bypassed it. There was still a bit of time left, according to the sundial. Adoria could not see the grins that Rodas and Vanko exchanged, but she could sense them in the way they set aside their tickle-implements to use their fingers in a final, merciless, wonderful tickling of her feet.

Twenty skilled merciless fingers, tickling her insteps and between the toes and over the balls and heels of her feet. Terrible glorious tickle sensations pouring into her soles. Tickling that made her vulnerable feet feel even more vulnerable. Tickling that struck lightly and quickly here, and there, and everywhere, so that it was impossible to tell which part of her helpless soles the centaurs would tickle next. Tickling that made that last minute feel like an hour, like a whole day. Tickling that made her laugh and laugh until tears ran from her eyes.

And then it ended. The centaurs moved quickly to release Adoria from her bonds, and she sat on the fleece, shivering, her feet tucked protectively under her. But she had succeeded. Take that, you ugly medusa-woman! Rodas and Vanko galloped off with the news, and Idalia wrapped a blanket around her. Hugged her. Massaged her shoulders in a way that felt nothing at all like tickling.

Two days later, Vanko came to the storehouse. “Ho, Adoria!” he called, grinning from ear to ear. “You’re wanted at the feast!”

“What feast?” Adoria asked, coming forward. “How did the battle go?”

“The victory feast. And there wasn’t a real battle - thanks to you. There were only the medusa, Henus, and a couple of thickheaded bravos. And ten thousand stone soldiers. They were mercenaries, brought in a few at a time, and turned into statues to hide them. We’d have spotted provisions being brought in for an army that size, but statues don’t need to eat or drink.”

He sobered. “The medusa was working for the Meadsians. She was going to turn the statues back into soldiers and invade the Land with them. It would have been a slaughter. But we got her first!” His grin returned. “So come on, you’re a friend of the centaurs, and you’re wanted at the feast!”

“Not so fast, Vanko. Give her time to dress,” Idalia came up behind the male centaur, her upper body wearing a colorful silk vest with an amethyst brooch. Matching ribbons wound through her hair, and more ribbons were tied in bows to her legs and tail. Her hooves were freshly polished and her lower body had been curried until it shone. “I’ll help you while Vanko goes and takes care of his own grooming,” she told Adoria. “Then we’ll take you to the victory feast. And this time we’ll make sure you don’t lose your pass tokens!”